To the Captain of My Heart
by peacerose47
Summary: The Captain has a secret admirer sending her cheesy pick-up lines every Valentine's Day. She thinks she knows who it is, but what can she do about it once it's too late?
It started during their first year in the Delta Quadrant. An anonymous message was sent to her private data terminal that read simply "I'll boldly go anywhere with you". Certainly one of the cheesiest statements she'd ever read, and an obvious pun on Starfleet's mission statement. But try as she might, she couldn't find out who had sent her the message. Eventually she decided to shrug it off and forget about it.

Exactly a year later it happened again. Neelix had been planning his Valentine's Day party for weeks, so she knew now what prompted the message. This time it said "Are you Vidiian? Because you've stolen my heart". She laughed out loud at that one. But still there was no name attached to the message and no way for her to trace who had sent it. She briefly considered asking B'Elanna for a way to catch her secret admirer the next time they sent a note, but decided that some mysteries were more fun when left unsolved.

Every year from then without fail, on February 14, Kathryn would wake up to find a message on her computer terminal with increasingly laughable lines. "You make my heart go to maximum warp", "The beauty of your eyes is a tractor beam I can't pull away from", "Can I tribble you for a kiss?", "Resisting you has always been futile", and her personal favourite: "Someone must have shot you with a phaser set on 'stunning'".

For twenty-three years, the messages continued, and Kathryn began to look forward to each one. Though she had her suspicions about who had sent them, she never confronted him about it. Through pain and hardship and long years of loneliness, these reminders that someone cared were a lifeline that she clung on to with tenacity. When _Voyager_ finally returned to Earth, the data chip with all of these messages went with her to her new apartment in San Francisco, tucked safely into the drawer where she kept her most treasured possessions.

A few months after _Voyager_ returned, Kathryn received word that Chakotay had passed away. She hadn't considered the two of them to be friends for a long time, but still she wasn't surprised at the crippling sense of loss and devastation that overcame her at the news. She attended his funeral with a small group of their old crew that had remained on Earth, and then threw herself back into her work among the admiralty, trying to force into the background her feelings about this recent event. But her tactic of distraction didn't last for long, when a delivery boy arrived at her front door one morning in February with a small bouquet of peace roses and a card in a plain white envelope. With trembling hands, she placed the roses carefully in a vase and slowly opened the envelope.

"Show me again the meaning of peace", was all the card said.

Seven simple words that brought up infinite memories. For the first time in far too long, Kathryn Janeway sat on the floor and sobbed. For twenty-three years, she had pushed him away, but her feelings for him had never abated. And she knew now that he had died still loving her. In that moment, she wanted nothing more than to be able to turn back time and throw her arms around him again. To tell him all the things she never said.

Ten years later, she got her chance.

By stealing a chrono-deflector from a Klingon named Korath, she created a temporal rift that took her back in time twenty-six years to a location in the Delta Quadrant. From there it was relatively simple, given how well she knew herself, to bully her way onto her old ship and convince her younger self to accept her offer of assistance. She spent several days overseeing the integration of her future technology into _Voyager_ 's systems, and greeting once more those crewmembers who hadn't made it home in her timeline, but all the while she was planning in her mind what she wanted to say to Chakotay. On the night before they returned to the nebula, she finally got up her courage and marched determinedly to Chakotay's quarters. She found, though, that all her prior plans fled her mind as soon as he opened the door.

"Admiral," he said, clearly surprised to see her.

"Chakotay," she responded as neutrally as she could. "Am I disturbing you?"

"No, not all. Please." He gestured for her to enter. She looked around at the once-familiar surroundings, remembering all the times he had made her dinner there, and the times they had sat comfortably together on the couch, exchanging stories of their respective childhoods over a glass of red wine. "Was there something I can do for you?" Chakotay asked curiously.

"No Seven tonight?" the admiral asked before she could help herself. She cringed at how bitter she sounded.

"I think Seven's in engineering," Chakotay replied. "I can call her if you need her for something-"

"No, don't."

They stood in silence then, and Kathryn could feel his gaze on her even though she made every effort not to meet it.

"Chakotay," she said at last, then paused, trying to remember her carefully-planned speech.

"Kathryn, are you all right?" She heard him ask. How long had it been since she'd heard him say her name like that? Well over twenty years, she thought.

"Kathryn?"

Funny, that voice used to be so comforting. So why was it now bringing up so much regret?

"Kathryn." His hands were on her arms now, his thumbs rubbing gently. "Kathryn, talk to me."

She looked up into his deep brown eyes, finally letting herself see the love those eyes had always shown her. She reached up and lightly touched his brow, tracing the tattoo she had often studied.

"I've always wanted to do that," she said.

His eyebrow rose slightly, but he made no comment.

"I've always wanted to do this too." Before she could change her mind, she slid her hand behind his head and pulled him down into a passionate kiss. He was still for a moment – shocked, she supposed – then he began returning her kiss, pulling her closer into his strong, warm arms.

How long they stood there, she didn't know. She didn't know either when their kiss became more urgent, when their lips and hands began exploring each other, or when she managed to push him against the bulkhead and tried to show him just how much she had missed him every day for longer than should ever be fair.

When she began fumbling with the fastening of his trousers, Chakotay held her hands to stop her.

"Kathryn, I don't want you to think I don't like what's happening, but I don't want this to go too far too fast. It's obvious you're upset about something, and I don't want you to regret this in the morning."

"I won't," she protested. "Dammit, I've waited thirty-three years for this, my only regret is not doing it sooner." She pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek, and whispered into his ear, "I love you, Chakotay."

"I love you too, Kathryn, I hope you know that." They held each other tightly, simply treasuring each other's closeness, until Kathryn pulled away and reached into her pocket.

"I've kept this with me for ten years," she said. She held up the worn piece of paper for him. "It was the last thing you gave me. I assume you arranged it before you died." She smiled sadly at him. "You never did miss a Valentine's Day."

He smiled broadly, showing his dimples. "I wondered if you knew it was me. I wanted to tell you a few times, but I wasn't sure how you'd react. You were so bent on keeping protocol between us."

"There's no protocol anymore," she said. "I happen to outrank you, _Commander_. But I know that to you I'm not really the Kathryn you fell in love with. So promise me something. When _Voyager_ gets home, tell the captain. I promise you she still loves you, and without regulations standing in the way…"

"I promise," he said, and kissed her forehead gently. "But the captain isn't here right now, and since you've been waiting thirty-three years…"

"It's a wonder I stayed sane," she murmured as she claimed his lips again.

* * *

But their plans changed when Captain Janeway saw the Borg construction within the nebula. The Admiral began to worry when the captain insisted on trying to destroy the Borg and potentially forfeiting their passage home. For heaven's sake, she was handing the woman a ticket home on a silver platter! The admiral refused to believe she had ever been that stubborn.

She decided drastic measures were in order to save her journey from being for naught. She told her younger self in very dramatic tones about the losses she would incur if she continued on their journey, including Tuvok's descent into insanity and Chakotay's ill-fated marriage to Seven. It was in everyone's best interest if she would simply take _Voyager_ into the wormhole and leave well enough alone. Could the captain really live with the guilt of damning her crew to that fate, she asked.

But the captain surprised her when her crew came up with a viable proposal for destroying the hub _and_ getting the ship back to the Alpha Quadrant. She began to believe it might just work. If they made one slight modification to the plan, that is. After all, there was no place on Earth for a woman out of time, and Kathryn had never been unwilling to sacrifice herself for the greater good.

So it was that Admiral Kathryn Janeway finally found herself in her last moments, with Borg nanoprobes swarming under her skin, watching her beloved ship speeding away into a transwarp aperture. She felt relieved that her mission had succeeded, and hoped her younger self would take this opportunity to put aside her stubbornness and the regulations she used like a shield, and would let Chakotay into her life once and for all. He was definitely worth it, the admiral thought, remembering their one night together. A faint smile graced her lips as she thought of him, and she barely noticed as the unicomplex burst into a vast fireball around her.

* * *

 _Voyager_ 's abrupt entrance into Alpha Quadrant space was nothing short of dramatic, and it took several minutes for everybody to come out of shock. A fleet of Starfleet ships filled the forward viewscreen, as visible evidence that they were finally home. Kathryn stood at the railing behind Tom, clutching it tightly as she let the news sink in. _We're home_. She let out a trembling sigh, and whispered, "Thanks for your help, Admiral Janeway." She felt a hand on the small of her back and looked up into Chakotay's concerned face. "We're home," she whispered to him. He smiled and stepped closer beside her, pulling her gently against his side.

Then the Doctor called and the spell of the moment was broken by the sound of a wailing baby, who had clearly inherited her mother's lungs. After Tom left to meet his new baby daughter, Kathryn turned and placed a hand on Chakotay's chest in her customary fashion as she walked past him, almost in a daze, towards her command chair. She had dreamed of this day for years and now it was finally here, but Chakotay was with Seven. She could hardly believe it, but the admiral wouldn't have lied about it, surely. And given how often she'd rejected his advances, it made sense that he'd moved on. She would simply have to live with that.

She was dimly aware of him taking his seat to her left, and then leaning over to say to her quietly, "I know it's too early for Valentine's Day, but I want you to have this." He held out a crumpled and worn slip of folded paper. She took it hesitantly, wondering if this would finally confirm her suspicions about her anonymous valentine. She opened the paper to read just seven simple words.

" _Show me again the meaning of peace."_

She glanced sharply at Chakotay, sitting calmly beside her and nonchalantly tapping at the console. He had never given up on her after all. Her hand reached out of its own accord and grasped his hand, stilling its movements, and Chakotay looked up at her uncertainly. She smiled at him, trying to show him through her eyes her response, and his face lit up with the brilliant, dimpled grin that she loved. His fingers gently entwined with hers, conveying a promise made long ago but forgotten by neither. The crew around them were for the most part unaware of the magnitude of the moment that was occurring. Only Seven of Nine, standing at the console behind the command team, saw Kathryn whisper "I love you", and saw the joy that shone in Chakotay's face in response. Instead of feeling jealous as she might have done, she smiled to herself, and began mentally calculating how many rations she would win from Lieutenant Paris' betting pool.

Not that such things mattered any more. After all, they were finally home.


End file.
